I just watched an interesting documentary titled Britain’s Really Disgusting Food hosted by Alex Riley. This documentary exposed the use of MRM in the production of a variety of frozen meat products. The main topic of this documentary was Mechanically Recovered Meat (MRM).

MRM is produced by removing all the good portions of meat (breast, thigh, etc.) and then crushing the remaining skeleton along with connective tissue and fat against a mesh in a mechanical device to produce a pile of crushed bones and and a slurry. The resulting meat slurry is called MRM and is typically used in Hot Dogs, Chicken nuggets and burgers. Also, cheap brand frozen foods (meat pies, kievs, etc.) cost less because they typically use MRM. MRM has been around for a while, but not so well known to the general public.

Alex was able to create a Chicken Kiev that met the FSA requirements, but had only 19% chicken (MRM-type stuff). And he was able to sell the Kievs to rich dudes at a food fair! Alex tried to get the FSA’s attention with a sarcastic “Eat Waste Save Animals” (by eating rubbish like MRM products, you maximize utilization of an animal, thereby saving the slaughtering of more animals) demonstration in front of the FSA office in London. Check out the video below:

There are other documentaries in this series. You can check them out on YouTube.

Another startling revelation in this documentary was the manner in which most frozen meat products are imported into the UK (and being very cheap). Here’s an example : Chicken slaughtered in Brazil, salted and frozen, then shipped to Netherlands, unsalted and thawed, then injected with water, frozen again and then shipped to the UK. Yikes!

I remembered a pair of American-style Hot Dog (Ye Olde Oak) cans in my Kitchen cabinet (bought them a year ago, but hadn’t consumed them as I’ve been avoiding processed meats). I checked the label and just besides the banner “Highest Quality Hot Dogs”, the list of ingredients read – 60% Mechanically Recovered Chicken, Pork collagen, EXXX, etc……the cans went straight into my dustbin! So, every time you think of popping into that Burger shop around the corner, think about MRM!